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Georgia
A. Popoff
 Georgia A. Popoff, of Syracuse, NY, is a “community poet,” expressed as
performance poet, educator, editor, and spoken word producer. As a performer,
she has toured both the west and east coasts extensively, coupling these
efforts with opportunities to teach in schools and provide peer workshops
in communities where she reads. Among her past projects as producer, she
coordinated the monthly reading series, “Third Thursday Poetry at Pastabilities,”
for 2 years; “Poetry at the End” at Happy Endings Cake & Coffeehouse, and
was the Syracuse Poetry Slam Master for 2 years. In fall/winter 2000, she
coordinated a series, “Sunday Kind of Words,” to feature poets who offered
both an afternoon workshop and evening reading to the Central New York writing
community. In 2001 – 2002, she coordinated a weekly reading, “Poetry Paradiso,”
which continued through Spring 2003 in collaboration with the Downtown Writers
Center and the Community Folk Art Center in Syracuse. Georgia has also produced
local events in conjunction with two international poetry programs, Poets
for Peace International and the United Nation’s sponsored Dialogue among
Civilizations through Poetry (www.dialoguepoetry.org), in collaboration
with the Everson Museum of Art.
Georgia is a senior editor for The Comstock Review (www.comstockreview.org)
and was poetry editor for Central New York Environment for 5 years. She
competed in the 1994 and 1995 National Poetry Slams. Poems have appeared
in numerous journals, including Asheville Poetry Review, Dharma Connection,
Light of Consciousness, Midewest Poetry Review, Poetpourri, Red Brick Review,
Salt Hill Journal, and Stone Canoe, among others. Her work has been included
in the anthologies The Waist is a Terrible Thing to Mind: A Wake Up Call
(Breakthrough Press, 2000); Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance
Poetry (Manic D Press, 2000); 2001 Di-Verse-City: Poets of the Austin International
Poetry Festival; and the Syracuse Cultural Workers’ nationally noted Women
Artists Datebook in 1998, 2000, and 2003.
Georgia’s first collection of poetry, Coaxing Nectar from Longing, was published
by Hale Mary Press in 1997. A new collection, What Remains, is being considered
for publication. Additionally, she has been included in the Pudding House
Publications invitational chapbook series, Gold: The Greatest Hits (www.puddinghouse.com),
which was released in summer 2003.
Web-based publications include poets4peace, MAP of Austin Poetry, The Poet’s
Porch, the Wrtiers’ Hood, as well as moderating an ongoing on-line poetry
workshop with participants from the U.S., Canada, the U.K, and Australia.
As a teaching artist, she has presented workshops at poetry festivals, in
schools, afterschool programs, adult education centers, community centers,
women’s shelters, day camp, juvenile detention facilities, museums, and
libraries. Georgia has been a coach for the NAACP ACT-SO program for African
American teens since 1994. In June 2001, she facilitated a week-long workshop
for poets in Tuscany and in 2003 presented a workshop at the first International
Performance Poetry Conference at the University of Bath in the U.K.
Georgia is a member of the teaching staff of the Downtown Writers Center,
the Syracuse chapter of the YMCA national Writers Voice program. With the
Syracuse YMCA, she coordinated a summer expressive arts program for the
YMCA Camp Iroquois day camp for 2 years, serving nearly 1,200 children annually.
Within the field of arts in education, Georgia is a member of the Board
of Directors for the Association of Teaching Artists (www.teachingartists.com)
and is the Central New York Community Coordinator for Partners for Arts
Education (www.arts4ed.org), a Central New York agency that funds and supports
arts in education programs for teaching artists, educators, and cultural
organizations. She is also a member of the planning committee for a proposed
Writers in the Schools program being developed for New York State.
As a professional development consultant to educators, she is Writer in
Residence to the Middletown and Watkins Glen, NY school districts, and has
provided professional development workshops for the Auburn, Syracuse, Solvay,
and Oswego, NY districts. She has presented workshops at the South Carolina
International Reading Conference and at the NYS CommonGround arts-in-education
conference as a co-presenter with Quraysh Ali Lansana. She recently has
been published in the New York Foundation for the Arts Chalkboard with an
article on the impact of NCLB on teaching artists.
The three strongest elements of what Georgia feels her poetry expresses
are heart, truth, and community, the community of common experience in the
human condition. Poetry is her joy, her passion, and her mission.
SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Elementary:
Word Play for Primary Grades
K & 1: Word Play - The Alphabet Poem. In the likeness of former Poet
Laureate, Robert Pinksy, I have created a poem with each successive
words beginning with the letters of the alphabet. These are individually
placed around the room for the children to discover prior to the
residency. After reading poetry to the children, they are then led on a
scavenger hunt to collect the words and piece the poem together. An
active and fun activity to incorporate letter recognition, numbers, word
roots, rhyme, and cooperation. This may be adapted to higher grade
levels to illustrate revision strategies and spark new creative works
that play on the acrostic poem model in an innovative way.
2 & 3: Word Play – The Poet’s Journey. This program involves first
reading poetry to the class with question and answer about the meanings
and the unlimited possibility of expression through poetry, as well as
stimulate imagination. The process of writing their own poetry is then
initiated, the goal being to write a poem to send to someone the student
knows who lives elsewhere, with discussion as to where each will be
mailing their final poem, and marking it on the map, thus including a
geography component to the residency. Basic lessons on prosody, or how a
poem is constructed, along with positive commentary and revision of the
work, is included, and final performance of the poems within the
classroom to encourage pride in the work and confidence in speaking
before others.
Intermediate:
Grades 4 – 6: Word Play – The Poet’s Journey. The same basic program as
above but with greater emphasis on the writing skills.
Planet Peace: A interdisciplinary group poem experience in which the
class is guided to first define the parameters of their own planet, and
then create a group poem about that planet, interspersed with lessons on
geography, science, weather, ethics, cooperation, and language arts. The
only two parameters imposed at the onset are that it is a planet of
peace and respect. Otherwise, anything goes!!! This program proves to be
a very animated, imaginative adventure in thought and word.
Middle and High School:
The World of Words: A basic poetry workshop with immediate writing
exercises and the recitation of poems to break down the barriers many
students have in creating their own work. Explanation of the elements of
prosody that make a poem different from other literary forms and a
reading of the work to encourage students to hone their skills at public
speaking are also a part of this creative workshop experience.
Poetry Slam in the Schools: The current movement of competitive
performance poetry is brought to the schools in an ongoing event
throughout the day with a slam at last period for the students to strut
their poetic voices in the spirit of healthy competition. This can be
incorporated with The World of Words for a longer residency.
The Voice of Politics: In a combination workshop/lecture experience, the
works of poets showing insight to various social movements can be
experienced in the classroom, permitting innovative learning for
students regarding history, sociology, and American literature, global
studies, and the poetry of these influences in particular. Then, these
awarenesses are directly expressed by the writing portion within English
classes in the latter portion of the residency period. At the end of the
5-day residency period, a school assembly program will be offered,
involving students as well as the workshop facilitator, to present a
reading of the work of noted poets and new student poetry created during
the experience to the student population at large.
Teachers’ In-Service Programming
Demystifying the Poem: A day-long in-service that looks at poetry as an
organic element of the classroom more than a stand-alone unit. Focusing
on helping teachers become more familiar with poetry as a tool for
improved reading comprehension, hands-on activities to take immediately
into the classroom, resource recommendation and sharing, and planning
for team teaching, cross-curricular programs, this workshop will help
even the most poetry-phobic educator feel at ease while strengthening
the skills and pedagogy of the seasoned teacher.
The Community of Syllables and Words: This discussion shows teachers
ways of using poetic forms such as haiku, tanka, and cinquains as a
method of bringing young readers to an engaging way of understanding the
structure of words and syllables that form language.
Metaphor - An A+B=C Equation of Creativity: This program will show a
very simple method of introducing the essence of metaphor to students,
helping them to identify emotions, feelings, and universal concepts in
tangible imagery invoking all five of the senses. With a few simple
exercises in creative brainstorming, teachers may lead students of all
ages to discover how to draw the equations that make metaphor, and
therefore, poetry unique.
Nature and the Poem - Seeing with New Vision: Nature and the student’s
environment are ripe sources of inspiration. With a series of different
suggestions for experiencing the world around them, students are opened
not only to new perceptions but exciting poetic possibilities. This
discussion offers creative visualizations, imagination journeys, and
exercises to trigger new work
Breathing Life into Poetry: The element of performance or reading a poem
takes stagnant words on a page and makes them meaningful to the student.
Speaking before groups of people with confidence builds self-esteem.
Methods of encouraging students to read before their peers, videos and
audio recordings of performance based spoken word, and ideas of how to
make poetry more exciting and accessible to students is the basis of
this presentation.
Collage, Found Poetry, and the Moment of Random Creativity: In the
tradition of collage art and found poetry, this exercise in creativity
helps to break down the anxiety of creating a poem on demand. By
juxtaposing unrelated words in a collage method to create a poem, the
randomness of the words predicate the form and the message of the poem.
In an almost Zen fashion, we are presented the opportunity to create
something new in language and with words that are not necessarily in our
daily and familiar vocabulary. This takes us in new directions and leads
to fascinating and amusing possibilities. This is a program that is an
excellent teachers’ in-service for ELA and Art programs but also a
rewarding experience in the classroom with little age limitations to
success.
Programs may also be developed and tailored to individual schools and
curricula. More detailed proposals and letters of recommendation
available upon request.
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